


Halfway

by armedarchaeologist



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Host (Meyer) Fusion, Bonding, M/M, Shiro is part of a resistance group, Soul!Keith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2019-03-08 19:11:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13464714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/armedarchaeologist/pseuds/armedarchaeologist
Summary: They fight with good will, but both lack an understanding for those they are fighting against. Or a “The Host” AU in which Shiro and Keith learn that humanity transcends anatomy and species.Written for the Aphelion Zine ~





	Halfway

**Author's Note:**

> Ahh! I'm so excited to share this finally! 
> 
> This fic was written for Aphelion: A VLD Writer Zine. A big thank you to all those who purchased the zine and an even bigger thank you to everyone involved in the process of creating the finished zine. I had such a fun time writing this fic.
> 
> Anyways! Here it is: a sheith "Host" au, enjoy!

The door in front of us falls with a bang, my boot knocking it from its hinges. There is a lack of screaming or frightened gasps from inside the house. So, it’s either empty or the parasites who reside here are asleep. I motion with two fingers, signaling it’s clear to enter the premises. Flashlights click on behind me, throwing circular beams of white light around the room. The back door of the house opens into a kitchen. Appliances on standby blink tiny green and red lights at us. The microwave’s blue display reads _2:14._

Stepping carefully around the island, I make for the fridge. The others root through the cabinets. Lucky for us, it’s impeccably well-stocked. Eggs, milk, fresh fruit.

“Hey, Shiro.” I turn to see Pidge sticking her tongue out. She waves around a can of peaches. “I win,” she says while tucking the can into her pack.

“But you got the last one, too,” I whine, admittedly like a child.

She just smiles and rolls her eyes. “Finders, keepers, man.”

“Aw, Pidge, I could make a pie with those peaches…” Hunk says, standing up from where he was on the other side of the island.

“And cook it on what? The fire? What if you burn them?” Pidge clutches her bag to her chest, her brows pulled down in offence.

They continue to bicker back and forth, becoming more and more distracted from the task at hand; We’re supposed to be collecting food, getting both stuff we could preserve and save for the winter months and food for the present. I tap my finger on the milk carton as their voices rise in volume. Just over their argument, I hear a click from somewhere above us, then, the soft patting of bare feet on hardwood. So someone was home after all. “Guys.”

The definite tone in my voice stops Hunk and Pidge immediately. We’ve gone on enough trips together to understand each other’s cues, the little things that gave away our discomfort or when it was time to get serious. These types of missions were always dangerous. Getting caught meant death, our death, or theirs.

The patter of feet from upstairs comes to a stop, before being followed by soft thuds of someone descending a flight of stairs. “Hello?” A timid voice calls out. Male, probably young to mid twenties. “Is anyone there?”

I motion for the others to hug the wall of the kitchen, standing on either side of the archway that leads into the rest of the house. The footsteps reach the main floor and the voice calls out again. “I have a seeker on the phone, if you do not show yourselves, I’ll tell them to come.” This time they sound more sure, steady.

Pidge looks over at me with wide eyes from the other side of the arch. I can see the memory of a similar mop of red hair being dragged away by men in white suits. It plays behind her eyes.

We can’t take the risk of the parasite calling the seekers to the house. No one will be taken.

At least no human will be.

I look at Hunk and tilt my head towards the opening, holding up three fingers. He gives me a short nod before rolling his shoulders. I count down the steps on my fingers. Everything slows down.

Three away… _Thump_

two… _Thump thump_

one… _Thump_

_Now._

As the parasite steps into the kitchen, Hunk and I surge forward. It cries as Hunk’s weight sends it to the floor in a harsh hold. I wrestle the phone from its hand and press “hang-up.” The parasite, whose black hair shades its face, fights against Hunk’s hold to no avail. It grunts as Hunk reiterates their positions and pushes it harder into the floor. “I’m really sorry, man,” Hunk says, sounding fairly apologetic.

“I won’t hurt you if you let me up. You know I wouldn’t,” the parasite says. And honestly I believe it. The Galra don’t believe in violence unless it’s to detain struggling prisoners. But…

“Sorry, kid. Can’t let you run away on us,” I say as I squat down to its place on the hardwood. I pick its head up by its hair, pulling its forehead away from the floor to get a good look at its face. Sharp features, conventionally pretty. There’s something feminine in the line of its jaw. The deal-breaker is its eyes. A bioluminescent ring of silver stains its irises. _Infected._ “You’re going to be used for something important.”

I glance up at Hunk before nodding. Hunk cringes as he slams the parasite’s head into the floor, knocking it out.

____

We’re on the road again by sun up, cruising along the desert highways as the sun casts rich oranges and deep reds across the sand and canyon walls. Hunk taps his finger to a silent beat on the steering wheel. Pidge sits humming in the passenger seat, fiddling with her make-shift GPS. It’s a miracle that she was even able to connect to one of the long abandoned satellites. Humans haven’t been able to use them in some twenty years, and our _guests_ seem to have no use in them.

I sit in the canopied back of our truck, boot resting on a jerry can. The parasite with black hair is laid out on the green tarp we use to cover the bed of the vehicle. Its eyes are closed and it breathes shallow breaths. Still knocked out, apparently. Its hands rest near its head. There’s no point in tying it up. With where we’re going, it won’t survive more than a day if it tried to escape. The desert is a hard pit to navigate.

The parasite’s eyes start to flicker under its lids… a dream. It’s a weird prospect for me to realise that these parasites can dream.

We call them “Galra.” “We” being the humans who escaped the initial invasion. They call themselves “Souls.” But it doesn’t matter what they’re called, because the term “Alien” is apparently universal.

They came to Earth twenty years ago, when I was only four or five. I don’t remember much of the actual events. I do remember my parents panicking and one day when they just weren’t there anymore, not themselves, disappeared into their own bodies with glowing rings of silver radiating out from their pupils.

The Galra are parasites that take over the bodies of their host. They came with the goal to build a better, more perfect planet. The invasion started slowly, then boomed. Millions of humans were captured and had a Galra implanted in them. Small pockets of resistance had risen up, but they’ve been slowly wiped out over the years. The seekers are rather effective in their jobs to seek out what little reserves of free humans there are. Hunk, Pidge, and I are a part of what we assume is one of the only groups left. But we’re trying to change that.

“Going off road! Hold on back there!” Hunk shouts through the window on the back of the cab. I grunt as the truck jostles us around, shifting to four-wheel drive. We dip off the paved highway and onto the rocky sand flats. The parasite bounces around a bit until it starts, sitting up and gripping onto the metal bench I sit on.

“Where… am I?” It asks, voice croaky.

“The Nevada Desert.”

It takes a second to stare at me before whipping its head around, scanning the passing rock formations and general lack of life. I note how its fingers tighten a bit on the metal bench it clings to.

“Where are you taking me?” It asks after a few moments of silence.

“To our base, where you’ll be detained,” I explain. I casually sit back as its shoulders tighten, my hands limp between my legs.

“Detained… as in… your prisoner?” It hasn’t looked back at me yet. I wonder if its eyes are wide, filled with terror, or closed shut, disbelieving of its whereabouts.

“With guards and the whole shebang.”

“Guards?” That captures its attention. It stares back at me. “How many of you are there?”

I shrug. “Enough.”

“I thought… there are not supposed to be many humans left,” it says to itself, low and under its breath. I don’t respond.

The rest of the trip is spent in silence. It doesn’t ask any other questions. In all honesty, I would answer anything it asked, to an extent. It isn’t like its time with us is very long anyways. We dip over one last bump before we’re surrounded by darkness. The sun forms a doorway, shrinking smaller as we drive further into the cave system. The Galra gasps at the sudden lack of light and Hunk throws on the high-beams of the truck. Pale yellow light illuminates the tunnel.

“Welcome to our humble abode,” I say dryly.

As we dive further into the tunnel, the space gradually widens and grows in height. In some of the larger pockets, natural skylights cut through with sunlight from above, shining amber light on the walls and sandy floor. The main tunnel we drive down branches off in other directions, more tunnels and shafts popping up, leading to other parts of our camp.

We take a left turn and Hunk slows the truck to a stop as we enter the main cavern. Several pockets of light shine on the floor from cutouts in the rock roof. People meander about, moving in and out of the carved rooms and homes they’ve made for themselves. Through the cab, I can see Allura, Lance, and a couple others approach the truck to see what we’ve returned with. Hunk and Pidge hop out of the truck and circle around back to help me drag out the parasite.

“Come on,” I say, pulling it to its feet with a little too much force. Hunk helps it down by reaching under its arms, picking it up and lowering it to the floor. He takes more care with the Galra than I have any patience for.

“What the hell is this?” A voice asks, stepping up to us. I look up to see Lance rolling his shoulders and staring down his nose at the dark-haired parasite.

“ _Lance,_ ” Hunk says. A warning.

Lance looks to me and I shrug. Lance strides forward and takes a swing, connecting his fist with the parasite’s face. Spit flies from its mouth as its head is jerked violently to the right.

“Lance. Stop _it_ ,” Hunk says. Rolling forward, he places himself between the Galra and Lance.

Lance rolls his eyes. “Oh, come on, Hunk. It’s not like it didn’t deserve it.”

“That is not how we treat our guests,” He responds.

“It’s not our _guest_ , Hunk,” I say. He doesn’t miss the irritation in my voice.

“ _He_ is still a person, Shiro.”

“Hardly,” Lance laughs.

Hunk ignores him and turns back to the Galra. “What’s your name?”

The thing almost looks shocked, eyes wide. “Keith… my name is Keith.” A human name. That’s a surprise. Most Galra don’t care for human names.

“Well, Keith,” Hunk says, “I’m sure you’re hungry. Pidge, Lance, take Keith to his room and bring him some food.”

Lance rolls his eyes and starts walking off in the direction of the more secluded rooms. Pidge hops out of the truck bed and gives the Galra a little shove, pushing him in the direction Lance left in.

After watching them disappear through a tunnel, I turn back to the truck, helping Allura unload food and supplies. I can feel Hunk’s eyes burning holes into the skin of my back. I sigh and throw my arm across a crate. “ _What, Hunk?_ ”

“You know ’ _what_ ,’ Shiro.” His arms are most likely crossed against his chest.

“Hunk, it’s not _human._ It’s not our guest. Lance and Pidge aren’t taking it to a five-star hotel room with room-service. They’re bringing it to a _cell_ , where it’s being held against its will. Stop treating them like they’re worth something, like they _deserve_ to be treated like they’re worth something.” My voice picks up in speed towards the end. I can feel the frustration rising from my pelvis, working up to my stomach and through my esophagus. Hunk knows what he’s doing, though, smirking at getting a rise from me. And as easy as he makes it look, it is a hard thing to do.

“All life is worth something, Shiro. You know that. But you’ve forgotten.” He watches me. I can feel her searching for something in my features. “If you want him to tell us what we want, you need to give him something in return.” It irks me, because I know he’s right.

“And what is that?”

“Understanding,” he says, like it’s that simple. He puts his hand on my shoulder, his face filled with sympathy. “You need a different perspective.”

“Right.” I nod. I walk away from him then, heading for my small apartment. I clench my fists a little. The pain from my fingernails digging into my skin brings me down. “A different perspective.”

____

It’s late when I roll out of bed, having given myself a few hours to think. Maybe Hunk is right. I need a different perspective. Even if it’s just for myself.

I find myself in the tunnels, walking further in and down towards where the Galra’s cell is. It’s laying on a makeshift bed carved out from the wall. I clear my throat to grab its attention. “Come on,” I say when it looks over to me. It gives me a curious glance before following anyways.

We take multiple turns, working our way through the labyrinth of tunnels. I’ve had this path memorised for years. “Where are we going?” The Galra asks after our fourth turn.

“To one of my most favourite places.” I’m still not sure I want to bring it there, for fear of ruining the delicate air that comes with it. But I need to be taken back, I need to be pushed to feel what I feel there with _it_.

We take one last turn before I stop, holding out my arm to keep the parasite from entering the cavern. It bumps into my arm and watches my face for what to do. I drop my arm and take a step into the space. I sigh at the carvings decorating the sandstone walls. A nostalgia for a time not my own hits me. The damp and clear air of the cold room clears my airways. It brings me back, back to _me,_ back to my skin and bone and sinew, back to everything that makes me human.

And then I hear _it_ step into the room behind me. And I’m shocked to find the alien doesn’t disrupt the ties that bind me to the earth and my people. I gaze over my shoulder at it, watching as it walks up to a carving and turns its head in confusion. “What are these?” It asks.

“Cave art,” I answer, “From earlier peoples.” The room is covered in it. Paintings and carvings of hunts, wild cats, and fires.

“You mean ancient humans?” It asks. It’s kind of a dumb question but I nod. “I hadn’t realised humankind was that old…” It has a tendency to talk to itself.

“Surely you knew we’ve been around for a while…”

“Yes, but,” it pauses. “We did not know that you were making art so early. It’s… _beautiful._ ”

And it is. It really is.

“We never had art on our planet. We did not know what it was until the second or third world we visited.” The statement makes me wonder how many places it’s been to.

“How many worlds have you… _visited?_ ” _How many lives have you stolen?_

“I’ve been to six, apart from the Origin.” It sighs. “I’ve seen so many things in this life, so many cultures and environments. But I will always miss home the most.” I listen as it continues about its home planet.

It humanises it... _him_. An alien that’s humanising himself…

He tells me about the Origin, the planet they came from, how very few Galra have actually seen the Origin. He tells me of how he misses the freedom of floating through the atmosphere, without the need of a host. “I wish that I hadn’t needed to leave to see what my world gave me… No one knows what they have until they lose it or destroy it.”

“Isn’t that the truth.”

The conversation ends there and we spend the next hour in silence. I sit in the middle of the small cavern, enjoying the cool air and darkness. Keith wanders around the room, like he’s memorising the patterns and drawings. I take him back after a while.

The next few weeks are spent in the same manner. Every other day I’d take him somewhere new, for an hour or so. One night I even brought him outside to watch the stars. I didn’t miss how his eyes watered. I think he missed seeing the sky.

I find myself opening up to him. And _myself_ , in a way. I allow myself to tell him things honestly, and he does so in return. And I find myself _wanting_ to listen to him. He tells me about how his host was in a crash prior to Keith taking him over. The blue-eyed boy was brain dead when they found him. Keith decided to take his name.

And I wasn’t the only one opening up to Keith either. Pidge is, surprisingly, the first to openly trust Keith. And eventually, everyone in the camp begins to open their arms to the man.

But no one forgets why Keith is with us. All of us are listening in for important information he could have. Coran, our medic, sits down with him every day to chat about physiology, sharing information about the human body in hopes of Keith sharing about his.

And it almost feels wrong, befriending the alien to use his knowledge against him. But then I catch the deep blue of the boy behind Keith’s silver, and I shrug off the guilt and go to sleep.

____

I’m wandering the camp one day when a strangled cry echoes through the stone tunnels. I run towards the distressed sound. The tunnels spill out into one of the larger carved-out rooms, the one that holds the clinic set-up. My gut twists when I remember what Coran had told me this morning, what he had planned for the day. He asked me to keep Keith away.

A crash and the sound of metal instruments spilling to the floor alerts me to the commotion inside the clinic. I run over and push aside the plastic door-flaps. I stop in my tracks when I see the scene playing out before me. Keith, eyes rimmed red and teeth ground together in a vicious growl, has Coran against a wooden column with a… _what the hell_ …

He has Coran pinned with a scalpel pressed to his throat.

The shock in Coran’s eyes mimics my own. Galra aren’t supposed to be inclined towards violence. Their actions have always been passive, never aggressive. So seeing one with a knife against someone’s throat is unthinkable… I’m not really sure what to do. My mind is blank. How do you even talk down someone who is already opposed to his actions?

Keith is shouting in Coran’s face, a warbled mess of “how could you” and “you monsters.” It’s then that I notice the body laid on the table in the middle of the room. There’s an incision at the base of their neck, hair and skin messy with blood. Laid beside their neck is a tiny, white organism. It looks almost like jelly-fish, squishy and slightly transparent. Small, tentacle-like appendages hang limp from its main form, red with flecks of blood.

“Keith…” I say, getting his attention. He dares a glance over my way, flitting his eyes away from Coran for just a second.

“Why are you doing this?!” Keith wails. The scalpel he holds dips slightly into Coran’s neck. A small trail of blood flows from the cut.

“There’s an explanation… I’ll explain everything, but you have to put the knife down, Keith,” I say, trying my best to sound calm. I’m really not.

I watch Keith’s internal battle. He cringes as he loosens his hold on Coran and drops his arm. The scalpel slips from his hand to the floor, clinking against stone. I reach for him then. He falls into my grip, pliant to comfort. I shift as he pushes his face into my shirt. “Why?” He asks, small and hurt.

The body on the table is still, no fall of breath or rise of chest. “We’re trying to find a way to remove Galra from human bodies. We haven’t be able to get it to work. Every time the human dies.”

“And the souls?”

“No.” Keith fights against my grip, crying and collapsing to his knees. I start again. “That’s why we brought you here, to tell us how to do it, inadvertently or outright. Then we were going to take you from this body.”

Keith is shivering at this point, still wrapped in my arms. He takes a few minutes to even out his breaths. “I will tell you how… but you must promise it ends with me. Stop taking us from your bodies.”

“Let you keep on infecting us? Taking away our will?” I gawk at him, incredulous. “You have no idea what you’re taking away from us!” I drop him then. His hands slap against the ground as he catches himself.

“People and souls will keep dying! I do not want any more humans to die just as much as you do. But you have to know we are trying to help you and your planet. I can help you, I will tell you everything you want to know. But, you must meet me halfway,” Keith says. His voice breaks somewhere in the middle. I laugh at that.

“There is no ’meeting halfway’ here. This isn’t a negotiation.” I grab his shirt by the collar, making sure he’s looking at me. “You’ll tell us what we need to know, or we’ll just rip you out and move onto the next one of you parasites.”

I stalk out after that. Keith’s crying can be heard through the tunnels. I roll my shoulders and make my way through the interconnected shafts. I need to cool off.

The climb outside is familiar enough, hand and footholds have been worn down with how often I use them. The night air is refreshing, it blows away the heat in my shoulders and chest. Stars shine bright in the speckled sky. We’re far enough from civilization that light pollution is no threat here. I take a seat on a small plateau and map out my favourite constellations. _Pisces,_ for when Venus and Cupid came together, _Cassiopeia,_ for the narcissistic queen, _the Phoenix,_ for the bird reborn in ashes _._

Keith had said once that the constellations here are unlike any that he’d ever seen before. How some of his favourites were from worlds that no longer exist. He’s seen planets die before. He knows the warning signs, seen species kill their home without a second thought. I don’t believe I could stand it if the constellations in my sky were gone, our perspective on the universe from Earth wiped away. I want to share them with my children, with the future generations to come.

Looking out to the desert, and the sky above me, I can understand why the Galra are fighting to keep our Earth alive. _No one knows what they have until they lose it or destroy it._ And it’s the first time that it hits me. There’s a sting from the cold wind across my face, like a slap against my cheek.

The Galra never wanted to take anything away from us. They wanted to give us our best shot. And I get that now. Keith screaming at us to stop killing… _I get it._

Hunk was right. All life is worth something. A lot of us have forgotten that, but the Galra haven’t. They’ve been fighting for it all this time, in their own way.

I get it now.

I want to go pick Keith up from the cold floor I left him on. I want to wrap him up, tell him we’ll try to do better. And I stand to do so. I’m going to go find him, right now. But when I turn, I don’t have to. Keith is standing before me, a few feet away. Wind has taken his hair and loose, black shirt. His eyes are red and puffy, but he’s stopped crying.

“Keith—”

“The stars here are beautiful,” he says. And damn him. Everything he sees on this Earth is beautiful. He’s made that clear. From the art in forgotten caves to the living sky above us.

“They really are, aren’t they?” I nod. “Keith, I—”

He shakes his head. “No, you are right. I do not know everything that we have taken from you.”

I almost laugh. He’s trying to apologise. “But look what you’ve given us. _Look._ ” I throw my arms out, showing off the world around us. The desert sits still in the night, moonlight dimly illuminating rock formations and cactuses. “You’ve… saved our planet. And I… I didn’t get that, not really. But I see it now. _Now._ ”

I step up to him, gather his hands in mine and look him in the eye. “Everything you see is worth something. Everything you see is wonderful. You see more than any of us humans do.”

Keith looks shocked, and I’m particularly swayed by the way his eyes widen. His mouth hangs open, just a little. He sucks in a small breath before he smiles. “You see with better eyes now.” He slips one of his hands from mine and raises it to my face. He rubs his thumb under my eye.

Another breeze passes over us and Keith pulls at my other hand. “Come inside. It is cold up here.” I nod and follow him back down. I climb down and help him after, watching where he puts his feet and holding his weight for him when he needs.

He takes us through the main cavern. Both of us are silent on our feet, not wanting to wake everyone. He takes a left turn and I immediately know where he’s bring us. I smile at him when he glances back. We turn and move through the tunnels silently, ghosting through the encampment.

There’s a playful thing in our step. My revelation on the roof woke up my senses. A piece of me that had been locked away has returned. I feel alive again. Everything is brighter.

We come to my favourite room, the one covered in carvings and paintings. Keith drops my hand and steps up to the wall, running his hand across a hunting scene. He’s somber as he takes in the wild and free figures. I feel the mood change with the furrow of his brow.

“I did not… _know_ how important freedom… and choice was to humans _._ I never knew.” His eyes hold something painful. I do believe him, that’s never been an issue _._ Even if other Galra knew how humans fought against the occupation, Keith never experienced it. His host wasn’t present from the start. “We saw you destroying your world and wanted to help.”

“We assumed the worst of you. And now, _now I know you._ I know who you are, what you want.”

“Neither of us are what we expected,” Keith says. There’s a slight curve to his lips. A small, amused, and disbelieving smile.

“Is it like that for everything?” I ask. Because I’m still young. Meeting Keith has made me realise that. I’ve still got a lot to learn from this world.

“Maybe that is what we have to learn next. We have to learn to live with each other.” He grabs my hand again, and I look at the way our fingers intertwine. “We have see the beauty in coexistence.”

I smile at him. “We have to meet halfway.” His smile widens.

We step through the room, circling around its walls. Keith’s thigh brushes against mine every now and again. I press myself close enough to feel his warmth. His unoccupied fingers brush against the carvings, exploring the dips and details of the art chiseled there. He stops at a depiction of flames. “There’s this part of me now,” he says, inspecting the way the artist rendered the flames. “A part of me that is on fire. It _burned_ when I saw Coran try and rip out the soul from that person.”

“You get angry, you mean. We call that anger.”

“Anger,” he says, trying it on his tongue. “It feels so hateful…”

“You’ve never hated anyone before?”

“We do not hate. It is a cruel thing to hate.” He glances at me and I don’t miss the look he gives me. “But when we take over a being, sometimes, their feelings and personalities blur with ours. I suppose being… quick to anger… is a part of who I am now.”

“It suits you. You’re headstrong, you stick to what you believe. A lot of a people see value in that. Some love those like that most.”

“Do you?”

“See value in it?” I know what he’s asking. Keith steps into my space, coming chest to chest and tilting his head up to meet my eye. The corona in his iris is stunning, like the moon reflected in a mirror. Behind it is the dark blue of the boy who lived there before Keith, the night sky for the moon to inhabit. “Yes… I do.”

The moon sets as Keith closes his eyes. I meet him halfway.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed don't forget to leave a kudos, and comments are always appreciated!
> 
> You can catch me on tumblr @ [aishiteruuu](http://aishiteruuu.tumblr.com/)
> 
> and at Twitter @ [memrems](https://twitter.com/memrems)


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